Jake Hill lost the lead of the British Touring Car Championship after a disappointing weekend in Croft - but with four rounds still to go it’s all to play for in the race for the title.

Platts Heath’s Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver Hill - the series’ in-form runner before the summer break with wins in the last three rounds - could only muster a best finish of fifth in race three. That followed sixth place in race one and 16th in race two.

Tom Ingram (Bristol Street Motors) tops the standings, 21 points ahead of Hill and a further eight clear of defending champion Ash Sutton (NAPA UK Racing).

Hill was on the back foot after only qualifying his BMW 330e M Sport in 11th due to a track infringement. He did well to slice through the field in the opening race, won by BMW’s Colin Turkington, but in a race two battle with Bristol Street Motors’ Tom Chilton, the Kent pilot came off worse and hit the barrier.

Josh Cook (LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ) took the chequered flag first.

Race three was more rewarding and, from 16th, Hill got down to business to make the top five. Chilton won the race.

“It’s been frustrating,” said Hill. “Frustrating mainly because the speed of the BMW was really strong.

“The big downer was getting spun out in race two by some appalling driving by someone else at a corner that simply isn’t a passing place.

“The team did an awesome job fixing the car for race three and we left the hard-tyre set-up on because there wasn’t time to change it.

“The BMW came alive with that and I was able to come up from near the back to fifth. We’ll put this one behind us and focus on getting the championship lead back at Knockhill.”

The next round takes place in Scotland on August 10-11.